1. Field of Use
The present invention relates to terminal communications and more particularly, to terminal communications within hybrid system.
2. Prior Art
It has been found desirable to be able to provide data processing systems which incorporate a plurality of central processing units which operated under the control of different operating systems (i.e., operating systems having incompatible characteristics). An example of such a system is one which includes a proprietary operating system and a UNIX based operating system. In such systems, it is desirable to have the central processing units operate in a peer relationship wherein each processing unit is capable of accessing all of the resources within the entire system. This provides the users with access to a variety of resources and an expanded repertoire of programs without extensive reprogramming efforts or elaborate emulation techniques. An example of such a system is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,027,271 entitled, "Apparatus and Method for Alterable Resource Partitioning Enforcement in a Data Processing System Having Central Processing Units Using Different Operating Systems," invented by John L . Curley, et al. which issued on Jun. 25, 1991.
In the above system, the character terminal device (TTY) connections are provided through a number of multiline communications controllers for user applications logged on to one of the operating systems (i.e., proprietary operating system) which have switched to the other operating system (i.e., UNIX* based operating system) are all "virtual". FNT * UNIX is a registered trademark of X/Open Company Limited. That is, the original proprietary operating system continues to perform communications services for such applications. This has resulted in increased overhead to the proprietary operating system making less time available for processing its own applications.
Accordingly, it is a primary object of the present invention to provide a system which overcomes the above problems.
It is a more specific object of the present invention to provide greater terminal connectivity in a way which is transparent to the user.